Party News from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard
Sunday, March 29, 2026
So They Say: Labour's guidelines for Capitalism (1975)
Labour's guidelines for Capitalism
Following his meeting with the Chairman of the Confederation of British Industry in January, the well- known non-Socialist, Mr. Denis Healey, has been increasingly forcing some of the facts about capitalism and how the Labour Party proposes to run it down the throats of the working class. Speaking at the Electrical Contractors’ Association in London on 11th February, he said:
If we price ourselves out of jobs by excessive wage increases, there will also be even greater cut-backs in new plant and machinery. That too means more men and women out of work, both now and in the future. None of this need happen. It will not happen if workers, not just in the union headquarters but on the shop floor too, stick strictly to the guidelines for wage negotiation laid down by their own leaders in the TUC last year.
We recall the uproar in the House of Commons not long ago when Labour MPs were clamouring for remedial action to be taken after British companies were found to be paying black South African workers below “officially recognized” levels. The Labour Party has consistently subscribed to the utopian view that wages can be fixed at some “fair” level which will be mutually beneficial to both capitalist and worker. Such a view has nothing to do with Socialism and we advise members of the working class to examine and reject the concept that a system of exploitation can be run “fairly.”
Closing his eyes and opening his mouth
Before Mr. Heath reluctantly vacated his position as leader of the Conservative Party in February, he put forward as neat a piece of mumbo-jumbo as one might expect. In a desperate attempt to appeal to all men everywhere, he undertook a dazzling rebuttal of the view that capitalist society is divided into two classes. Speaking on his ability to lead the Conservative Party he said:
It is not just a question of looking after the middle class, which of course has very great problems particularly under this Government, and we should do our utmost to help it. But it is not just a question of class at all. I loathe the word class. I do not believe in class. It is a question of ensuring the prosperity of the nation in which everyone can share.(Financial Times, 31st Jan. 75)
Well, Mr. Heath may not believe in it, although after almost ten years as leader of the Conservative Party he has had as good an opportunity as most to realize that the interests of the workers and capitalists are opposed, but his beliefs are neither here nor there. The class position of the individual is not determined by the beliefs of anyone, but by the relationship between that individual and the means of production. Whatever aspirations some individuals may hold to the contrary, those members of society who do not own any of the means of production or distribution form the working class. This is the vast majority of the population and it is through their efforts alone that the “prosperity” Mr. Heath refers to is created, not for the benefit of “everyone” as he would have it, but for the benefit of those individuals who do own the means of production and distribution, the capitalist class.
A Goodly Wizard
One of the inevitable reactions to the continuing barrage of propaganda from the capitalists that Britain is going bankrupt, that this crisis must be surmounted, that we must all make sacrifices — ad nauseam, is that the heavenly thoughts of the Christian sorcerers get another outing. They are always at hand to tell us that “God moves in mysterious ways”, but the reality is that whichever way he moves, it always seems to serve the need of the capitalist class. This is no accident, there being a clear link between the scriptural injunction “Servants obey your masters” and its application to the working class.
The Very Rev. Horace Dammers, the Dean of Bristol, has recently launched a movement entitled “Life Style” which apparently already has several hundred members. The Dean underlined the Christian ethic of frugality (for the workers) so much beloved by the ruling class through the ages:
I think we have found a realistic way for ordinary people to make a positive contribution to the good of mankind.
Apart from monthly meetings where the members get together in order to “analyze each other’s incomes” or discuss ways of “using their money in ways which they consider to be less socially harmful”, some members are
planning to share cars and lawnmowers, and to cut down on food and insurance, and are thinking twice before buying new clothes, and even pets.(Sunday Telegraph, 2nd Feb. 75)
If the Dean genuinely wishes to make a “positive contribution to the good of mankind” he should exorcise this bogus brotherhood, and start to study Socialism.
Honest Profit
It is usually advantageous for capitalists and the politicians representing their interests to refer as little as possible (in public) to the mainspring of capitalist production — Profit. Some appear to view its mention with a hurt concern, preferring to talk about the “creation of prosperity,” or “economic growth.” Others are more brazen:
No-one now believes that profit is a dirty word, if profit is honestly earned and put to proper use.(Mr. Denis Healey speaking at the CBI’s annual dinner at the Hilton Hotel on 14th May 74.)
However, according to a report in the Financial Times on 11th February, ICI is one company which is afflicted with a certain "self-consciousness” in this regard. The fact that the company had produced a profit of £375m. over nine months caused the Public Relations Dept, of ICI to commission a survey from Documentary Research of Bristol, in order to gauge possible public hostility toward profit announcements. The survey team interviewed 1437 people and one of its findings was:
There appeared to be no understanding of the fact that a very high percentage of profit was paid out by companies in tax; only 6 per cent acknowledged that tax was paid at all.As a result of these findings ICI laid new emphasis on tax in its financial advertising both internally in the company newspapers, and in the National Press.
All good stuff for the Public Relations men to play up at every opportunity. We can imagine the copy now — "Yes the profits may look big, but you want to see the size of our tax demand.” Nevertheless we place no importance on the amount of tax a company pays. The report went on to say:
There is no great antipathy towards profits. ‘We might not have put profits at the top of our advertisements before,’ said ICI. But the survey has shown up some other areas of misunderstanding and mistrust which will take more than simplified advertising campaigns to overcome. There are strong suspicions that results are not presented honestly.
The newspaper report concludes:
One wonders, would the results (of the survey) have been different if the respondents had been less ill- informed about the ultimate destination of profits?
Its ultimate destination is irrelevant to the working class who have created this surplus-value. By the time Profit is counted, the worker has been paid. What workers should usually do is not concern themselves where Profit goes, but to examine where it originated.
Specialist Purposes
An explanatory note on the Times report of 6th February regarding the Ingram 9mm. sub-machine guns recently purchased from the USA by the Ministry of Defence is required:
The Ingram is said to be well suited to undercover operations. But the ministry is emphatic that the guns, bought for “specialist purposes” have not been used in Northern Ireland. The silencer differs from the conventional kind. Instead of slowing the bullet as it leaves the muzzle it allows it to reach full supersonic speed. The enemy would hear a crack as the bullet passed him, but it would be impossible to tell where it came from.
We can reveal that the “specialist purposes” to which the Ministry vaguely refers are that the guns will be issued to those members of the working class within the British armed forces so that they may fire them at other members of the international working class when the interests of two groups of capitalists collide. The report is misleading in suggesting that “the enemy would hear a crack as the bullet passed him”. This defeats the purpose of the bullet — the truth is that the “enemy” would hear nothing as the bullet passed through him.
Alan D'Arcy
Politics: Rates, Taxes & the Working Class (1975)
The swindler Horatio Bottomley, when he was a Liberal MP in 1907, proposed in Parliament measures to finance Old Age Pensions for all people over sixty-five. The chief proposals were an Employer’s Tax of a penny in the pound on all wages; super-tax on investments; Stamp Duty on share certificates; a tax on racing and betting stakes; and State appropriation of all dormant bank balances and securities.
His biographer Alan Hayman says: “It is a tribute to the acumen of Horatio Bottomley that nearly every one of his suggestions has subsequently passed on to the statute book in some form or another.” The acumen obviously came from the frauds Bottomley had already been involved in: having done down a number of wealthy individuals, he knew that if revenue on a big scale was wanted it could only be had from the capitalist class on the assumption that it was in their ultimate interests to pay.
It is a pity that more people have not understood the position so realistically. The idea that taxes are paid by the working class to upkeep institutions which belong to them is one of the myths by which the majority are misdirected towards non-issues. Of course phraseology plays a major part; the revenue from rates and taxes is always described as “public money” and “the taxpayers’ money”. As with terms like “the nation” and “the British people”, it is necessary to ask what is meant by “public” and who are the taxpayers. The case which the Socialist Party of Great Britain has put forward consistently since 1904 is that rates and taxes are a burden not on the working class but on the capitalist class; and this remains just as true in 1975.
Working Out Wages
Many workers would at first glance treat this as preposterous. They are possibly “having to pay” several pounds a week in income-tax deducted from their wages; the prices of petrol and cigarettes are high, and other prices are pushed up, by tax additions. At the present time local rates are expected to go up by fifty per cent. or even more. These are seen as inroads on the money people have to live on, and there has been talk of organized refusal to pay rates if the increases are as great as expected.
The first and most important question is: what are wages? The capitalist system is based on the ownership of the means of production and distribution by a minority, who therefore live by owning. The great majority, having no such resource, have to live by selling their labour-power — that is, working for wages. Thus, labour-power is a commodity like anything else, and its price like all prices is the expression in money of its value — what went into producing it and is needed for reproducing it. At the lowest level that can mean enough money for the food and the rent, but in practice it means meeting many requirements. If the unskilled worker’s labour-power is a cheap product sold at a low price, the professional worker’s salary (equals wage) takes account of his training and the components of his “standard of living”.
But whatever their amount, wages are obviously what is received: the actual payment, not a hypothetical one. Workers cannot help but be aware of this. No-one will be persuaded that £30 is £40 and that the latter figure is a “true” wage; the opposite is the case. The illusion created over “tax deductions” is that if only they could be evaded or reduced in some way, the worker would be so much better off. The single man with a big gap between gross and net pay sees that his colleague with a family has a smaller gap, i.e. takes home more wages, though he probably has less to spend in the end. If only some benevolent tax legislation would provide the best of both worlds!
Paring and Portions
It should be recalled that large numbers of workers were not involved with income-tax at all before the last war; like keeping a bank account, it was regarded as a sign of being well-off. In Studies in an Inflationary Economy (1966) F. W. Paish gives tables showing the percentages of total earned-income tax drawn from different income groups before and after the war. In 1938, 87 per cent. came from the first (the highest) 500,000, and all the tax was attributed to the first 5 millions or less than half of all employed persons. By 1959 the first 500,000 were responsible for only 42.3 per cent. The first 5 millions provided 72.3 per cent., and the range covered the first twenty millions.
This is part of an argument by Paish that there had been a marked equalization of incomes. In fact, the changes in the figures for earned incomes at the top and tax drawn from them reflect changes in the taxation system more than anything else. But, if one granted that the working class as a whole had become concerned in direct taxation since 1938, these figures show what a small concern it is. In 1938 more than half of earned incomes paid no tax; in 1959, with the number of employed persons doubled, roughly three- quarters paid only just over one-quarter of the tax.
What tax deductions achieve is an apportionment of income among the working class. Their introduction early in the war (linked with the post-war credits scheme, a fraud which Bottomley would have envied) had the object, besides raising money, of restricting consumption: they were reductions in wages. The workers most hit by them were, of course, the unmarried ones whose spending money was cut. This remains the case, and it means that the discontent of married workers with homes and families, which is the main strength of wage demands, is checked to some extent.
Incidentally, a report in The Observer of 16th February bears out that tax deductions are cuts in wages. Wedgwood Benn, the Secretary of State for Industry, addressed a Labour meeting at Hillingdon:
Although ostensibly attacking the Tories, Mr. Benn was evidently warning the Chancellor [Denis Healey] that he would not accept any brake on consumption. He denounced as a ‘pre-war remedy’ the idea of a wage cut.Under Mr. Healey’s plans for bringing down inflation, the level of take-home pay after tax would have to rise less fast than prices.
Paying for What ?
Realistically, therefore, income-tax as far as the working class is concerned is a more sophisticated version of Bottomley’s proposed Employer’s Tax on wages. Not much thought is needed to see that it is paid by employers in any case. It is applied to individual wage-packets to effect varying payments according to status — single, married with no children, married with several to support, etc. — from a notional common wage. (We are not here considering national insurance contributions, which generally are returned to the workers as benefits.)
One argument is that workers do pay taxes but receive benefits in return; thus, that food and housing subsidies and public services are, as it were, purchases on an equalled-out, socially “just” basis. Certainly it is true that subsidies and services are provided by the Government out of taxation, but the beneficiaries over the costs are the capitalist class. Subsidies are an important means of keeping down the cost of living, and but for them the wages bill would be much higher.
Moreover, they are a means again of apportioning. Those chiefly affected by them are workers with families. Why should capitalists have to pay workers ail round to meet a cost, when those to whom it applies can be selected ? This is the purpose of housing subsidies, rent rebates, family allowance and so on, as well as subsidies on food.
What should always be borne in mind, nevertheless, is that the main burden of taxation is for government expenditure on the civil service, armaments, law enforcement and the rest of the general maintenance of capitalism. This is what the capitalist class must support. That is not to say they pay tax willingly. On the contrary, they try continually to have the costs of government reduced — usually by one section seeking to have part of the burden transferred to another section. The differences between the main political parties are largely differences over taxation and expenditure: hew the money shall be collected and how it shall be spent.
Taxes and Prices
Where indirect taxation is concerned, here again it is commonly assumed that the taxes on commodities are an extra charge to the purchaser. In fact price increases caused by taxes are no different from increases due to other factors. Although the introduction of Value Added Tax in Britain has made the prices of many commodities rise (though some have fallen, or risen less than they would otherwise have done), few people would think of it as a reason for continuing inflation; and even fewer would think of taxation as a reason for the difference in prices between 1914 or 1939 and now.
Government policy over indirect taxation in the past has always been to seek industries where monopoly or near-monopoly conditions ruled, demand for the products was fairly inelastic, and high profits being steadily made; and then to “cream off” some of the profit. It is by no means true that the tax must be passed on as an addition to retail prices. In Benham’s Economics (1967) F. W. Paish says:
In practice, however, a monopolist seldom charges a price high enough to maximize his profits . . . The normal response of producers is to “pass on” the tax to consumers by adding it to their selling price. They may discover after a time that their sales fall off so much that their best course is to reduce their prices somewhat, but to begin with they are likely to add on the full amount of the tax.
The position may appear slightly different with VAT, since the tax takes the form of a straight percentage addition to the retail price. The increasing practice is for prices to be stated “including VAT” instead of naming a separate price to which tax is added. In other words, the producer or seller still seeks the best price he can get, taking the tax he must pay into consideration: prices are prices, just as wages are wages.
The Rates Bill
To workers who are householders, it seems undeniable that rates are an increasingly heavy burden on them. Since there are misunderstandings over what rates are for, it may be worth explaining that they pay the running costs only of local government administration and services: staff salaries, welfare services, the maintenance of schools, roads, sewers, etc. The maintenance of Council housing is normally a separate fund which must be supported from the housing income.
Capital expenditure — the building of houses, flats and schools, the provision of roads and sewers etc. — does not come from rates. The large sums required for these are borrowed by local authorities, if and when the projects are approved by the government department involved. Local government is the branches of central government; its work implements the policies of the central government, by whom its expenditure is controlled.
Rates are a charge on property, and before rent restriction (starting in 1914) diminished private landlords the rates were paid by them from rent revenues. Since that time, house rents have divided into “inclusive” and “exclusive” of rates; in the latter case the tenant pays the rent to the landlord and the rates to the local authority. It is a matter of landlords’ book-keeping — most local authorities still offer a 10 per cent,.reduction for rates paid en bloc, but not many landlords think it worth while. The effect has been to create the impression that it is the tenant who is the ratepayer; whereas he does not own the house, and is only paying in two parts what he would have paid in total.
The position has been further complicated by the growth of owner-occupation, to the point where alternatives to the rating system are now being urgently considered. The most popular suggestion, though made vaguely, is a “local income tax”. Insofar as a great many workers have thought (encouraged by deceitful political catchphrases like “a property-owning democracy”) that acquiring their own house was a step upward, it is a tragedy that they acquire only crippling mortgage repayments and are caught in a system of charges intended for bigger fish altogether. When an alternative system is produced, it will show where the burden of supporting government correctly lies.
Socialism, not Reform
One of the hopes of working people when they vote is for reductions in rates and taxes. They hope for "tax concessions”, i.e. that their take-home pay will be increased by the deductions being lightened; and for changes in the situation over rates so that they have to pay out less. Their belief is that these changes would make them substantially better off.
A simple answer is to look at times, not so many years ago, when few workers were conscious of income-tax problems or received rate demands and prices were lower. Were they better off ? Alternatively one may ask if, supposing it were possible for a government to make tax and rate alterations which favoured the working class, the employers would readily accept the consequent jump in wages ? Hardly. Any fall in the cost of living has always been followed by the forcing down of wages, as happened in the early nineteen-twenties. The general lowering of wages was, in a short time, practically equivalent to that of the cost of living. Farm workers’ wages, which were 46s. a week in 1920, were 29s. by 1924 and remained at that level up to 1939.
Reformers exist by persuading workers that adjustments and reallocations within capitalism can change their situation. Before the war Dean Inge wrote in the Evening Standard: “Popular education is taking the bread out of our mouths.” He was voicing the belief of workers who considered themselves “middle-class” that they were being ruined by taxation; the same section of the working class now complains of being ruined by the rates instead.
The level of taxes makes no difference to the continual struggle to keep abreast of the cost of living, as the history of legislation in our lifetime shows. It is an error to think that rates, taxes and prices are an issue for the working class; the only issue is Socialism.
Robert Barltrop
Letter: Three questions (1975)
Three questions
Since the late ’forties when I listened to Socialist policy and principles at Lincoln’s Inn Fields or at Hyde Park Corner, I have considered the propositions of the SPGB. I find myself in agreement with the political theory you set forth, but there are three points which I have never been able to resolve.
The hypothetical situation of a Socialist party coming in as an administration in any country in which you have a connection would mean that it would, as a Socialist entity, probably find itself alone in a capitalist world. Would not the maxim of Lenin that “socialism is impossible to sustain in one country alone” apply? (I agree that Lenin’s conception of Socialism was erroneous but the doctrine would, I think, just as truly apply to any of your sister parties.)
As I understand the Socialist position there would be no police or law-enforcement body in a Socialist society. It is agreed that most crime stems from existence in a capitalist society, but I cannot think that all crime would disappear under Socialism. Rape, for example, would probably exist in any society. How does one deal with violent anti-social acts which, so far as one can tell, are not the product of capitalism?
I cannot accept that Socialism and religion are incompatible. True, the way in which the capitalist establishment uses religion for its own ends obscures the issue and prolongs the coming of Socialism, but it seems to me that contemplation of the possibility or otherwise of a life after death is purely a matter for the individual, and to insist that one’s opinions in this matter should be declared before being considered as a member of the SPGB appears high-handed if not dictatorial. After all, if one were regularly to consult a psychiatrist (for which, for many people, religion is a substitute), would this too preclude membership?
E. Morley
London S.E.5.
Reply
For convenience we have numbered our correspondent’s questions. The replies are:
1. Socialism will be world-wide because the system it will replace is itself world-wide. The establishment of Socialism in one country alone is impossible because the means of production are operated throughout the globe. You appear to assume that political ideas cannot cross political boundaries. This is not so. Even in the nineteenth century when communications were much slower and more laborious than today, ideas spread very quickly. Even repression and censorship by the ruling class could not prevent ideas spreading. Remember that 1848 was called “the year of revolutions” when uprisings occurred all over Europe. Indeed, there was an often-quoted saying which sums this up admirably — “When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold”.
2. See the reply to another correspondent on the “problem” of crime.
3. Socialism and religion are incompatible. The former explains man’s development and his social relations in material terms which we can verify. Religion on the other hand “explains” the world by reference to the existence of an unprovable entity, i.e. God. The belief in a possibility of life after death is a soporific which prevents the action that is urgently needed to solve present- day problems being taken now.
4. Undergoing psychiatric treatment is no more a bar to membership of the Socialist Party than is undergoing treatment for corns.
Editors.
Letter: Squaring the family circle (1975)
Squaring the family circle
The article on “The Future of the Family” in the February Socialist Standard gave me food for thought, and I’d like to make some comments.
First, about social groupings in Socialism. P. Deutz says — “People . . . belonging to the community does not have to mean living cheek-by-jowl in an undifferentiated mass! Rather, a mixture of private and communal life in accordance with individual choice.” I think she carries over into the new society the distinction between “private” and “public” life which exists in capitalism.
“Private” life in the nuclear family is often restricting and isolating, but it does have some human qualities — continuity, personal relations etc. — which are lacking in the even more manipulated and alienating forms of “public” life, such as the mass political meeting. In both, workers are kept separated from one another and dominated. No doubt people in a Socialist society will want different degrees of privacy at different times, but there is no need to fear that either the more or the less communal parts of their lives will bear any resemblance to the present-day family or mass events. People will want to break down the huge factory and office work settings into smaller and more friendly workshop-type teams. Discussion and decision-making will most conveniently be done in quite small meetings, linked together by delegate congresses and telecommunications. This will be made possible by automation and computer technology. On the other hand, people will have gained the security, material and emotional, that may enable them to extend their intimate relationships at the same time as improving their responsibility to one another’s needs.
Just as people will want to combine the most satisfying aspects of urban and rural life, so they’ll want to combine the most satisfying aspects of “public” and “private” life. At any rate, I’d want to.
I’m glad that P. Deutz recognizes that men and women will both take a full part in childcare, and whatever housework cannot be eliminated, as well as in production and so on. Finally, don’t the family and lack of Socialist understanding have some connection with one another? (I mean the family as it exists now.) In terms of restricted horizons and concerns for both men and women, the illusions of sex rôles, and all those people in little boxes staring at the goggle-box? Don’t we have to start thinking about the effects that different social institutions have on consciousness, and what we can do about it?
Stephen Stefan
London N2.
Reply
The history of the family shows that its form has adapted to suit prevailing economic conditions and not the other way round. Modern families may be preoccupied with their own affairs but they do not exist in a vacuum. Or do you seriously suggest that people are impervious to any influence from outside their family circle? (Many parents might wish it were so). Even television, as well as puerile slop, beams into workers’ homes pictures of the latest technological success which contrast starkly with other scenes of human deprivation and misery.
The view on the blend of private and public life assumed that in a harmonious society human individuals will still have varying personalities and needs. However congenial the communal life we may still wish to relate to, and live with, others on a more individual basis.
We have always stated that under Socialism men and women will, in accordance with their ability, co-operate to perform the tasks necessary to that society. You have never read anything to the contrary in this journal!
Editors.
Letter: An appreciative reader (1975)
An appreciative reader
Many thanks for sending me your literature about your Socialist principles. I agree with most of what you say, in fact I am almost in complete agreement.
I have been a Socialist all my working life and in the past, active in my old union the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers.
As I am now 77 and a pensioner I cannot send you any cash at the moment but I will try and save something and send it on to you as soon as I can do so.
I was in France, having been dragged in to participate in that slaughter of the working class and was there when the 1917 revolution took place in Russia. I then thought that now the whole world will become Socialist and that the bloody red Flag of the workers would fly over the whole world! Of course, I realise better now. Although I still believe in the Materialist Conception of History I do not think that there is Socialism in any part of the world today. As you rightly say the workers, are still being exploited by the state and the élite above enjoy everything that’s going. Brezhnev & Co. are sitting there on their big fat arses and don’t give a monkey’s sod about the working class there or anywhere else.
I was a follower of the great John Maclean. He was no leader but a great Marxist teacher. He made the Red Clydeside. At that time the ordinary worker could discuss Marxism without much effort due to the teaching of John Maclean who was destroyed by the capitalist class. I still think that west of Scotland is the most politically class-conscious part in the UK. Perhaps that is why they don’t vote for the so-called Communist Party !
I am very much interested in the Socialist Standard and will have to do something about getting it every month. Long may you continue the good work. There is little I can do now for the cause as I am unable to get about as I used to.
Colin Campbell
Glasgow
Reply:
While having other views about “Red Clydeside”, we appreciate your support. Keep on reading and learning !
Editors.
Letter: Crime Passionel (1975)
Crime Passionel
Ref. the January issue of the Socialist Standard and the article “The Real World Outside”.
The writer of the article says, quote: “Socialist society will have no more need of prisons, than it will have of bombs”. Whilst agreeing with this statement, and the fact that 90-odd per cent of imprisonments are inflicted on people for theft, or for acts committed in the pursuance of them, which would not happen in a Socialist Society.
In a Socialist society however, some misdemeanours will still occur. How are these to be dealt with?
For one example, crime passionel, i.e.: A man desires a woman, but the woman rejects the man’s advances, preferring to live with another man, and not at all interested in the rejected one at all. In blind jealousy, the rejected man inflicts bodily harm, possibly death on the favoured one, or on the woman herself, or on both. Would nothing be done by society in a case like this? Would it be treated purely as a personal affair between the parties involved?
Regarding the criminally insane. Severely mentally disturbed people of a violent nature, would still have to be locked away, in a prison of one sort or another. No doubt with better conditions and facilities than at present, but a prison nevertheless.
J. Cardin
Merseyside.
Reply
J. Cardin raises so many interesting points that we would need a whole issue of the Socialist Standard to deal with them fully. Within the space available, we can only say this: the example of “crime passionel” is dangerously loaded with the prejudices of capitalist society. For example, you assume it is a man (not a woman) who is blindly jealous. Why? Can we suggest it is because so much of the advertizing etc. we see round us, shows woman as part of the complete man, instead of a full human being in her own right? This “blind jealousy” you talk of is usually the result of the conditioning of a perverse environment, where man assumes property rights over “his woman”. And “blind jealousy” is a phrase leaving so many questions unanswered. Why do people go off their rockers? May we suggest that one of the fundamental causes must be life under capitalism with all its stresses, and distorted values.
Why assume that the rejected one would “inflict bodily harm” on the former lover and his or her new lover? If you love someone, you don’t inflict harm on that person, or on the object of his or her affection. And if you don’t love, will you care enough to inflict harm? It is only property society which overloads basic human emotions with absurd and dangerous complications, causing absurd and dangerous reactions.
You do contradict yourself! You agree with our point that Socialist society will not need prisons in your second sentence, and then in your last sentence assume there will be prisons in Socialist society. Let us solve the riddle. There will be no prisons in Socialist society. If people commit violent acts upon their fellows it is almost certain they are mentally ill. If people are mentally sick (“criminally insane” is a brutal expression of property society) they will receive the same attention as the physically sick that is the best treatment possible.
Finally may we refer J. Cardin to the September 1974 Socialist Standard where some of these points are dealt with at more length in the article “Law and Society.”
Editors.
Letter: Is there a hereafter? (1975)
Is there a hereafter?
A correspondent in last month’s Standard asserts that “there is no life after death, re-incarnation, or other hereafter” (p.16). Why is this so? Please do not evade the question (which you are wont to doing). Such a bold contention is as much an article of faith as “Credo in unum Deo.” Were it a rational doubt, I would heartily subscribe to that view. Since Marxism purports to set out the truth, it inevitably breeds its own conspiracy theories of ignorance. Now can it not be that its atheistic standpoint merely arises from some such theory?
What other grounds are there for actually advocating this belief? Furthermore, although “the advantages of religion to the capitalists are pretty obvious,” this lot can by no stretch of the imagination be censured for preaching from pulpits. What needs to be established is why the clergy should lend tacit support to the “bourgeois mammonism” of today (look at the “Rerum Novarum” doctrine of Pope Leo XIII).
What this all boils down to is that an utter denial of all religious teachings belies a fundamental distinction between religion as a “temporal” institution and religion as theology. A bellicose attitude towards all aspects of the latter is not only groundless, but completely irrelevant. Moreover, it is liable to alienate the religious minded workers of the world and further entrench the anti-socialist bias of religions. Whatever the case may be, surely Socialism is far more than the elevation of mundane desires to a philosophy of Life?
Andrew Cox
Reply
The article in the January Socialist Standard was not attempting to disprove the existence of the “Hereafter.” You will recognize that it is a supernatural phenomenon whose continued “existence” in the form of religious belief relies on both obscuring and eluding scientific fact. In this respect you fail to put forward any facts which we can comment on, or which lead us to doubt the view expressed in the article. Our point was to show that the groundless belief in imaginary concepts has, and will divert workers from critically examining the material conditions existing on the planet Earth.
Such a state of mind is directly beneficial to the ruling class. Not only does it accept the class nature of society as being part of the “natural order of things,” but it is positively protective towards it. We were not suggesting that members of the capitalist class regularly enter church pulpits in order to project this view. Although some members may do so on occasion, it is largely members of the working class who do this work for them.
We note that you are prepared to assert without elucidation that “Since Marxism purports to set out the truth it inevitably breeds its own conspiratorial theories of ignorance.” If by this you imply that the Object of the SPGB is aided in some way by cultivating an ignorance of certain facts, we must disagree. Our efforts have always been directed to fully examining every kind of social and political phenomenon and in presenting our analysis to as many people as we can. This is a crucial factor in our work for when the working class applies scientific analysis to material conditions, capitalism itself will be abolished, and supernatural beliefs will no longer retard the establishment of Socialism. The working class has nothing to gain from ignorance; it is the ruling class who have everything to lose from education.
Editors.
C. Joyce, N.10: Letter and reply in our next issue.
D. H. Scrivens, Swindon: Many thanks for your letter of appreciation.
50 Years Ago: The Liberal Party's Record (1975)
Freedom ! Liberty ! ! Read their record. The only liberty they have known is the liberty to exploit labour. Have we omitted anything from their rotten record? We have—piles of evidence. We have even omitted to mention they were a capitalist party. Is it necessary to add this now? Why, in their earlier days they were capitalism, as distinct from the Tory landed interest. The plague spots of Sheffield, Ancoats, Lanark, Cradley ; the industrial wens of the Black Country, the Potteries, the chemical districts, the mining areas; these are the heritage of the Liberal Party. A generation or so ago they re-christened Liberty. They called it by a French name—laissez faire—let alone. That was their idea of liberty, “Let us alone.” The slogan of the Manchester school : Starve, sweat, bludgeon, oppress and exploit, but let us alone. Men were stunted, crippled and crushed; women brutalised in mines and factories; children taken from workhouses and “apprenticed” to industrial exploiters; but—laissez faire; let us alone.
. . . We visualise real freedom as belonging to a time when the whole people have free access to Mother Earth; when the whole people are free from the incubus of a parasitic class ; when the whole people socially own their means of living; when development shall be free from the shackle of selling, and production free from the necessity of profit. Freedom will then lose its capital letter. It would be the normal, not the sum of a few piffling, fraudulent reforms.
[From an article "The Mockery of 'Freedom' " by W. T. Hopley, in the Socialist Standard, March 1925.]
Recent Tapes Library additions (1975)
Party News from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard
An audio recording of Harry Young's meeting on Rosa Luxemburg is available on the SPGB website.
I wonder if any of the other meetings listed above are in the party archive?
Editorial: Manpower and the Crisis (1947)
Remedy the Labour Government Cannot Use
Capitalism breeds war, waste and want as a jungle swamp breeds pestilence. Practically every minister in the Labour Government has acknowledged the truth of this some time or other and has pointed the obvious moral that if you want to remove the pestilential effects you must remove the capitalist cause, and introduce Socialism in the place of Capitalism. They said this, but did any of them understand what they were saying? Probably not. If by chance some of them did then by taking office in the Labour Government they were acting a deliberate lie for they were promising something it was not in their power to do. There can be no Socialism until there are a majority of convinced Socialists in the electorate and even the most deluded of Labour leaders would surely not claim that the 12 million Labour voters were Socialists. A government cannot impose Socialism on an unwilling electorate. This should be obvious, but it took the recent crisis to jolt the “Daily Herald” into even a partial recognition of the facts. The “Herald’s” admission, a veritable masterpiece of understatement, was framed as a warning to Ministers not to entertain the “treacherous delusion” that would “regard the whole electorate as enthusiastic converts to Socialism” (February 8th, 1947). The same Editorial goes on to claim that “a peaceful revolution is being wrought in this land which will bring solid benefits within our lifetime, and will confer blessings untold on posterity.” We can leave posterity to speak for itself and content ourselves with foretelling a time when the electorate will count it an immediate blessing to be rid of the Labour Government.
The reader is of course entitled to ask us why we are sure that Labourism cannot succeed. The answer is to be found in the opening paragraph of this article. Capitalism we know; Socialism the workers can have when they are ready to grasp it; and there is no other choice. The root fallacy of Labourism is the belief that a Labour Government can administer capitalism in a non-capitalist way. With all the good intentions in the world it cannot be done” Labour Ministers may make election promises with perfect sincerity, but in office they learn day by day what it really means to keep this exploiting, profit-making system .going, in competition with the rest of the capitalist Powers. It means resisting wage claims so that the capitalists can go on making profit. It means perpetuating the vast gulf between rich and poor. It means maintaining the armed forces and struggling with rival Powers for trade, raw materials and colonies.
It is hardly necessary to say that it also involves swallowing past declarations of what ought to be done, such, for example, as Sir Stafford Cripps’ complete reversal of his views on trade rivalry. Now he is chief director of the export drive. Five years ago he declared, “If, after the coming of peace, we were to start once again the vicious circle of international trade competition, we should be lost, and in a few years would be confronting another war” (interview with a Brazilian newspaper—”Sunday Express” November 8th, 1942).
The recent crisis, forerunner of others, took on the appearance of a problem of fuel and manpower, brought to an acute phase by an “Act of God,” the British weather. It was, however, not a crisis of coal or of cold, but of capitalism. Let us examine this and see how capitalism, which caused the problem, prevents the Labour Government from solving it. The second World War (itself a product of capitalism) destroyed vast amounts of wealth and left a legacy of shortages of housing, food, fuel, clothing, transport, etc. Not that want was a new experience for the working class, but the war aggravated the problem by the immensity of the destruction it wrought all over-Europe and Asia. What would a sanely organised human society have done about this, assuming that such a form of society had to tackle the problem? It would have stopped all waste of labour and materials, halted the production of armaments, and of luxuries for the rich, and would have concentrated on producing the necessities of life in the quantities urgently needed by the population of the world. How did the Labour Government (and all the governments in all the countries) tackle it? They spoke the right words, but proceeded to apply fiddling half-measures. The British Labour Government said they needed man-power in production, but they found that British capitalism had a still more pressing need to keep 1,500,000 men in the armed forces and other hundreds of thousands supplying the needs of the forces and preparing for future wars. They said they needed more workers producing coal, food, houses, etc., for the millions who lacked bare necessities, but they left intact the class structure of capitalism, with its hundreds of thousands. of wealthy idlers consuming without producing, and its hundreds of thousands of workers engaged in banking, financial and other operations that only arise because of capitalism. There are over 700,000 non-industrial civil servants, about 350,000 of whom are Post Office workers. The great bulk of the remaining 350,000 are doing work rendered necessary only by capitalism, as is also much of the work of the Post Office. We are told that many civil servants are employed on insurance and similar work which the Labour Government regards as socially useful; but it is only the mind habituated to capitalism that cannot see what this work really is. Staffs handling unemployed and health. insurance are not there to see that the needy (needy because of capitalism) receive enough to satisfy their needs, but to protect capitalism against the needy receiving more than the niggardly amount allotted to keep them quiet.
The same contradiction between proclaimed aims and practical activities can be found in every sphere. The luxury needs of the wealthy have not been sacrificed to speed up the provision of necessities. On the contrary, the Government has encouraged the planning of luxury liners, luxury air travel, and luxury goods for export. These schemes are defended with the plea that luxury exports make it possible to import necessities unobtainable in other ways. The curious thing is that the governments of other war-damaged countries (France, for example) are doing the same and on the same plea, so that some luxury goods are being imported by all the countries which declare their inability to supply enough necessities for their populations. What it shows is that, despite Labour Party talk about a “new world,” the British and other Labour Governments are basing their plans for the future on the continuance of the same old capitalism, with its extremes of wealth and poverty. They are all catering for the needs of the wealthy.
Here then is the simple problem and the simple solution. On a conservative estimate the production of useful goods could easily be doubled in short time if the armed forces and propertied idlers and the workers doing work necessitated only by capitalism, were brought into production. Why doesn’t the Labour Government even attempt to do it? They don’t do it because even if they wanted to they dare not. They were put into power by an electorate that does not understand or want Socialism and which therefore gave the Labour Government nothing more than a man¬ date to go on administering capitalism.
The recent crisis arose because the capitalist state needs to have millions of people taken from production for the armed forces and other non-productive activities and therefore cannot take simple straightforward measures to make good the destruction of war. It led to great suffering and to the increase of unemployed to about 2,500,000 at the peak. In due course another and more usual type of capitalist crisis will blow up. Goods will be produced in excess of what can be sold at a profit, then unemployment will soar again. Then the Labour Government will be looking for other excuses than the cold weather to explain the failure of its plans. The “New Statesman,” which shared all of the foolish Labour Party beliefs in the possibility of applying so-called Socialist policies to capitalism, has in anticipation already coined the appropriate face-saving formula for the next crisis: “… the Government is confronted with the certainty, now that the illusions about a liberalisation of America’s trade policy have finally been dispelled, that a Socialist experiment confined only to this country is bound to fail” (February 8th, 1947). So the “New Statesman,” shedding one illusion, grasps at another equally absurd. It proposes that Britain cut adrift from trade and financial ties with U.S.A. and collaborate instead “with other countries which are experimenting with planned economies.” If it is a fallacy, as it certainly is, that a Labour Government can apply Socialist plans to capitalism, common sense should make it clear that you do not escape from the dilemma by linking up with other countries in which similar governments are trying to perform the same impossible feat. Capitalist crises know no frontiers, and Labour Governments here and elsewhere will no more escape the next crisis than they did the “economic blizzard” that blew down the British Labour Government in 1931 and simultaneously toppled over the Labour Government in Australia.
For the world’s workers there is no escape from the problems and crises caused by capitalism except by introducing Socialism.
Delay in publication (1947)
From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard
Like other periodicals, the Socialist Standard was barred from being published on the usual date through the suspension order issued by the Government during the fuel crisis.
The consequent delay was aggravated by continuing difficulties arising out of the stoppage of power. Readers will appreciate that the delay has been unavoidable.
New Zealand—A socialist country? (1947)
The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism involves a complete sweeping away of the prevailing system of society which is known as capitalism and the introduction of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life. The introduction of reforms which occur in the normal evolution of capitalism and are necessary to its more effective working, do not constitute socialism though the reforms may be put through by politicians calling themselves Socialists as in New Zealand to-day.
New Zealand was opened up :by the New Zealand Company, and not by independent settlers as took place in America, hence its particular evolution. The dominant figure of the company and the man who defined its policy was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He looked at the American colonists’ progress in the early days, and from his capitalist’s outlook found it unsatisfactory, because each ‘settler was virtually independent, making their own clothes, candles, soap, etc., in addition to growing their own food. That was not Wakefield’s idea. Where all are independent, as were the early American colonists, there is little capital accumulated, as there are few, if any, labourers to exploit.
Wakefield saw that if many workers could be attracted to New Zealand they would require the products of manufacturing industries in order to support life, thus creating more employment with resultant profits to the capitalist class.
Primarily employment was to be in the form of work on the land and steps were to be taken by the company to see that the ownership of the land was concentrated in a few hands, thus preventing the workers from becoming smallholders and achieving a measure of independence.
England in 1840 was, for the labouring masses, a country best left behind. The history of 1830-1840 is of revolts by agricultural workers, miners and iron workers against their appalling conditions: revolts which were ruthlessly put down. The French revolution was too recent for clemency, which might he mistaken for weakness. With the industrial revolution accomplished, there was unemployed capital as well as labour; Wakefleld believed that both could be profitably employed in New Zealand.
Alas, his hopes were doomed to failure for many years. The New Zealand Company bought up land from the Maoris at less than the proverbial song and sold it in large lots to those who were to become capitalist farmers and would, it was hoped, employ and exploit the labourers which the New Zealand Company intended to persuade to emigrate.
In order to induce workers to go out to New Zealand the Company gave free steerage passages and undertook to give paid employment in the service of the company if the workers could not at once find masters. The company did not bargain with having to redeem this pledge; they made the fatal mistake of not ensuring that buyers of land went to the colony in order to employ labour to work it. With promises of employment, hundreds of working people emigrated from England. The rough sea journey was a smooth passage compared with their sufferings when they arrived and found none of the promised jobs, and were forced to take employment with the New Zealand Company at less than a subsistence wage.
Few landowners but many labourers continued to arrive, as having once been set in motion the recruitment did not cease. Agents in England continued to be paid at a fixed rate per emigrant, and news did not filter through to warn the prospective worker emigrants.
Finally, in 1844 matters had reached such a pass that the company ceased employment and payment altogether and distress was widespread. Here the lack of any elementary form of doles became evident. The destitute labourers in England had, meagre though it was, Parish relief or relief in the Poor House. In New Zealand, however, nothing of the kind existed and charity was most tardy.
As colonization continued the price of land increased still more and the land remained in the hands of the few. As the franchise had a property qualification the government represented the interests of these few. Legislation therefore, for the provision of hospitals, schools, and the relief of pauperism, was blocked in successive Parliaments. By 1853 only four hospitals had been built in the whole of New Zealand, and these left everything to be desired, but they became the beginning of relief, the Poor Law infirmary without the Poor House ! Another attempt to deal with pauperism was the setting up of Soup Kitchens in Auckland, and in 1865 a contributory form of health insurance was inaugurated among the road makers, on the basis that they paid the whole contribution.
The year 1865 also saw the passing of the repressive “Master and Apprentice Act,” which contained a clause stating that boys or girls refusing to serve their apprenticeship could be sent to jail for three month’s This related to children of twelve.
1868 saw the first attempt at unemployment insurance, which was a tax of 10s. a year on adult male^ to provide a fund for the destitute, the sick, orphans, etc.’
By 1898 it had become necessary to make some provision for the aged poor. These were the young labourers of the early immigration ; they had not grown rich or become landed proprietors, as some earlier colonists of other countries had done. In old age, after a life time of privation, they were awarded a pension of 6s. 11d. per week.
Meanwhile, industry was going forward in New Zealand, and the introduction of refrigerating ships made export of food a paying proposition to the big farmers. The workers learned that organisation on the industrial field was essential if their standard of living was to be maintained. The United Federation of Labour was formed in the teeth of opposition from the employers, who victimised the members at ever, conceivable opportunity. The climax came in October 1913, when the employers cancelled their contract wit: the Wellington Watersiders and staged a lockout During the bitter weeks which followed the workers were completely defeated. The Labour Disputes Investigation Act was passed making sudden strikes illegal, and the Federation of Labour lost most of its power as the unions became more and more concerned with arbitration.
The Social Democratic Party originally declared Socialism to be its aim deteriorated into reformism. like the British Party, and in 1916, the present Labour Party emerged from it, its avowed object, being simply the nationalisation, that is the taking over by the state of the means of production.
It was this Labour Party that took office in December, 1935, on a programme which included state control of currency and credit, guaranteed farm prices, i national health service, and a recognition of the “right to work” !
Whatever else it may be, it, is clear that a programme of this kind bears no relation to Socialism. When Socialism is established there will be no currency, no credit, no guaranteed farm prices, nor any of the provisions that capitalism is forced to make to try to combat the effects of slumps and booms. State intervention in these problems of capitalism is not Socialism.
The set-up in New Zealand is accurately described by R. S. Parker, a New Zealand political writer, in ” The Australian Quarterly ” (March, 1941, page 30) :—
”The Labour Government has simply continued in the New Zealand tradition of state control and regulation, private ownership and operation. The central feature of the present set-up is the survival of the spirit and content of an essentially capitalistic economy, upon which the state has imposed a far reaching, but largely negative system of regulations, controls, prohibitions."
The Labour Party has been in office for over ten years, yet in many aspects conditions in New Zealand are worse than those of Britain.
The latest report of the Director-General of Health for the year 1944-1945 proves Public Health and Industrial Hygiene to be worse than in the “old country.” As comment on all points is impracticable for reasons of space, only the most significant will be given.
The general health of the Maoris, who were in 1840, a healthy race, is poor. Tuberculosis is rampant, and the infant mortality rate very high (102.26 per 1,000 live births). Much ill-health is due to the notoriously bad state of Maori housing and no great improvement in health is possible whilst they are living under such overcrowded and insanitary conditions.
The report on Industrial Hygiene is very enlightening. Many of the comments of its author, Dr. Davidson, would fit any industrialised country: —
“… many thousands are employed in work which is hot, dusty, laborious, dirty or merely monotonous and uninteresting, and they, too, may be exposed to environmental dangers, the effects of which although less immediately disabling are none the less real” (page 20).
Continuing, Dr. Davidson holds up British Factory Legislation a-s a shining example to New Zealand, and advises those capitalists who are reluctant to spend money on amenities for their workers to think again. Covering the bitter pill of expenditure on nurses and doctors in the jam of future profits, he shows what skilled treatment of accidents, etc., may save in absenteeism, accident compensation, etc.
Dr. Davidson recognises the reasons why necessary reforms in industry are not carried out when he points out: —
”It is partly a matter of finance; merely to, keep a factory clean costs money” . . .“Good seating, too, is no mere philanthropy, its pays.”
To the ears of the capitalist class the words “it pays” are sweeter than the sweetest of music—perhaps they will be convinced!
We have seen how young children might be jailed for refusing to work, but Dr. Davidson was surprised to find them still working : —
“I have been surprised to find children under school leaving age working full time in various factories during school vacations and in isolated cases during school terms. Children of 13 and even 12 can be seen working whole time—and sometimes overtime—in factories which in many cases are very ill-kept and in some of which highly poisonous chemicals or dangerous machinery are in use ” (page 27).
After the above report was compiled the Statutes Amendment Act of 1944 prohibited the employment of children under 14 years. Such conditions had, however, prevailed for almost 10 years under the “Socialist” Government.
The workers of New Zealand have been taken in by the promises of their Labour Party as were the workers of Britain in 1945. Disillusionment must come when it is found that neither state control nor private ownership within the framework of capitalism will solve the ills thrown up by capitalism. Only when the workers of New Zealand, together with the workers of other lands, realise the reason for their exploitation and combine to overthrow it can Socialism be achieved.
W. P.
Nationalisation news (1947)
From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard
“Cheques sent in bundles by the Bank of England to the clearing house are now tied with red tape instead of white.” (Daily Express, 13/1/47)
The Town and Country Planning Bill (1947)
From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard
“A man will no longer be able to buy farmland at £200 an acre in the hope of reselling it as a factory site at £600 an acre. True, it will be worth more as a factory site—but the State, through a Central Land Board, will collect all or most of the difference” (Daily Herald, 8/1/47).
Thus the Labour Government carries out a longstanding demand made in the interests of the industrial capitalist. H. M. Hyndman, in his “Economics of Socialism,” dealt with this. After reviewing the Ricardian theory of rent and the many objections which present themselves to that theory, he wrote: —
“It seems, therefore, that a wider definition of the rent of land under Capitalism is needed than that, given by Ricardo, and the following is suggested: Rent of land is that portion of the total net revenue which is paid to the landlord for the use of plots of land after the average profit on the capital embarked in developing such land has been deducted.”
On the question of confiscating rent he pointed out that it “would not affect the position of the working portion of the community unless the money so obtained were devoted to giving them more amusement, to providing them with better surroundings and the like. . . . In fact, the attack upon competitive rents is merely a capitalist attack. That class sees a considerable income going off to a set of people who take no part in the direct exploitation of labour; and its representatives are naturally anxious to stop this leakage, as they consider it, and to reduce their own taxation for public purposes by appropriating rent to the service of the State. That is all very well for them.”
On this point Marx says: —
“We can understand such economists as Mill, Cherbulliez, Hilditch, and others, demanding that rent should be used for the remission of taxation. That is only the frank expression of the hate which the industrial capitalist feels for the landed proprietor, who appears to him as a useless incumbrance, a superfluity in the otherwise harmonious whole of bourgeois production.” (“Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920. Page 176.)
“Rent,” says Marx, “results from the social relations in which exploitation is carried on. It cannot result from the nature, more or less fixed, more or less durable, of land. Rent proceeds from society and not from the soil.” (P. 180.)
(The above quotations are used by H. Quelch in his Introduction to Marx’s “Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920.)
Horatio.
"St Moritz and Miners" (1947)
From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Observer of Sunday, Dec. 29th, 1946, describes the absence from work of Miners and Railway men, etc., on Friday and Saturday of Christmas week as “Shockingly anti-social.”
On the front page of the paper, and also in the Sunday Times, there was a photograph of the winter sports at St. Moritz (Switzerland), and many British holidaymakers are thus seen enjoying themselves there.
The Sunday Times (same date) tells us that between 13,000 and 14,000 holidaymakers travelled to the Continent during Christmas week. Considering that the workers in the main get two days’ holiday at Christmas, we are certain that a Continental trip for them is quite out of the question, apart from the expense. If that is so, then the lucky 13,000 must have both the time and the money.
The Observer, as a Capitalist organ, runs true to form in condemning the workers for absenteeism while wealthy idlers enjoy themselves in Swiss luxury hotels with the wealth created for them by their sweating wage-slaves.
J. D.
Peaceful Preparations (1947)
From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard
The American Government is going ahead with plans to build up stocks of raw materials required for war. In two years the expenditure on purchases at home and abroad will amount to well over £100 million. Is this good news? The Manchester Guardian rather thinks it is: “This plan will incidentally provide other countries — in particular British Empire countries — with dollars to supplement those earned from normal exports to America.” (February 14th, 1947).
“This,” says the Guardian, “is particularly welcome now that the world banks lending plans are hanging fire” ; not to mention the fact that the “purchases made inside the United States will also help to ward off the much talked-of ‘business recession’ there.”
Thus in one short news item two war-time hopes, of no more war and no more trade depression, are forgotten and here we are back in the pre-war atmosphere of being glad that war preparations keep trade going !
Voice From The Back: Prisoners of want (2002)
Prisoners of want
“One hundred thousand pensioners in old people’s homes are living on allowances of as little as £10 a week. Most are not even receiving the £16 weekly payment to which they are entitled, according to new research. The revelation that legions of old people live on less than many prison inmates will greatly embarrass Ministers, who have boasted of tackling pensioners’ poverty. “We were shocked when we discovered this,” said Lorna Easterbrook, who carried out the study for Help The Aged. “There’s a huge sense of humiliation among these old people. Some are getting £10 of their due allowances, but others are getting just £3 or £4 a week after relatives or homes make deductions.” Observer, 20 January.
The Observer journalist’s view that the Labour government ministers will be “greatly embarrassed” is probably wide of the mark. Nothing could embarrass these vile supporters of capitalism. Fellow workers, this could be your future inside capitalism. If you live beyond your ability to produce surplus value for the blood-sucking capitalist class. A bed pan and a tenner a week.
No cause for celebration
Twenty years ago a British Prime Minister told the Sun, and other slimy tabloid newspapers to “Rejoice” at the victory of the British capitalist class against the Argentine capitalist class. No mention was made at that time about the loss of working class life. We have no figures about the deaths of Argentine workers, but twenty years on, we have some about British workers. 255 British servicemen were killed, but even more awful since that madness, 264 British servicemen, who were involved have committed suicide. (Figures from the Guardian, 19 January.) Excuse us if we don’t rejoice, Thatcher, at the deaths of members of our class in the defence of your system. There are many orphans and widows of the working class today in both Argentine and Britain whose tears make joy impossible.
They like it, My Lord
“A Trade Union Congress report out today estimates that four million people, 16 percent of the workforce, work more than 48 hours a week, the limit set by the 1998 (European Union) directive. Men work the longest weeks with one in four clocking up more than 48 hours; one in ten working 55 hours; and one in 25 working more than 60 hours . . . John Monks, the TUC General Secretary, said: “Britain’s long-hour culture is a national disgrace. It leads to stress, ill-health and family strains.” Times, 4 February. Not everybody would agree with the TUC, though. John Crickland, Deputy Director-General of the CBI offers a defence of the long hours. “Workers want the right to make their own decisions about extra working hours. Managerial workers often work longer hours because they want to.” This defence is rather similar to the Fox Hunting Lobby’s – “The fox enjoys the hunt.”
Science and the profit motive
Inside socialist society the pursuit of knowledge will be free to all. There will be no restrictions on scientific investigation. This is impossible inside capitalism, with its copyright laws and its profit motive. Sir John Sulston, one of the leading researchers in the Human Genome Project has shown how powerful the profit motive is in science-based commerce. “We can’t possibly prohibit discovery. But on the other hand to imagine that we should always exploit, especially if it makes extra money, is insane. I think most reasonable people, including those who run companies, would agree. The trouble is, once people get into a company boardroom, they have no other choice. They have shareholders. I am afraid you have to leave your principles at the door of the boardroom”, he says.” Guardian, 2 February.
Blair, bombast and bombs
At the Labour Party conference last year Tony Blair said: “The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world”. Poverty, corruption, famine and war, he thundered like an Old Testament prophet, must be tackled. It went down big with the delegates. It is the sort of thing the Labour Party adore – talking about social problems in sanctimonious moral tones, and then doing nothing about it. But this time they were doing something about it – they were making it worse! “The government was facing condemnation from protesters against the arms trade last night after new figures revealed that the value of arms sales to Africa will more than quadruple by next year . . . High levels of spending on arms are seen as one of the main causes of poverty in Africa. A report by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals that in 1999 African nations received £52 million worth of arms in deals with British firms. That figure rose to £125.5m in 2000 and is set to top £200m next year.” Observer, 3 February.
Post-combat syndrome
A report in the British Medical Journal claimed that post-conflict symptoms had been suffered long before the Gulf War and stretched back as far as the 1889 Boer War. “They concluded: “Post-combat syndromes have arisen in all major wars over the past century, and we can predict that will continue to appear after future conflicts” . . . The researchers said the best way to tackle the illnesses, which have cost subsequent governments considerable sums in financial assistance, was to better understand their characteristics.” Herald, 8 February. Surely, a much better way to deal with the problem is to abolish capitalism, the cause of modern warfare. No conflict = no post-conflict syndrome. You don’t need to be a trained medical researcher to work that one out.
